St. Cloud father, son share blurred future

A St. Cloud father who is legally blind due to an incurable, hereditary condition hopes for a brighter future for his son who is set to go on the same dark path as their vision progressively worsens.

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Gordon Vogt, 63, uses a lighted magnifying screen and thick glasses to read the type in a magazine Wednesday. He and his son have a rare eye disease called autosomal dominant optic atrophy.(Photo: Jason Wachter, jwachter@stcloudtimes.com)Buy Photo

Story Highlights

Gordon Vogt of St. Cloud was told as a teen he would never drive because of his poor eyesight

Rare eye condition affects the optic nerve, which connects the eyes to the brain, and it atrophies

Son faces similar fate as his dad and learns not to take things in life for granted anymore

Shane Vogt does something his father has never done — drive — but probably not for much longer.

He works at an automotive dealership. His father, however, never got a driver's license and is legally blind due to a hereditary eye disease they share.

"My eyesight is changing," said Shane Vogt, a 43-year-old husband and stepfather who will likely have the same fate as his father Gordon. "The details in my life are fading."

They were born with autosomal dominant optic atrophy, a condition that is rare and untreatable, but Gordon Vogt — like most fathers — wants better for his son.

"Now, I'm at the point that the number of driver's licenses I'm going to get in the future have become a legitimate question," Shane Vogt said.

"What if I can't drive in five years — the freedoms and the luxuries, my way of life with my wife and kids? It makes me more appreciative of what I've got now."

Like father, like son

Shane Vogt said he needed glasses in his early teens and had normal vision with corrective lenses well into his mid-20s, but as the years passed, his vision became progressively worse.

"My limitations probably aren't very obvious to anyone else other than someone I tell. I could come to your house and have a meal, and you'd never know I can't see as well," he said.

"When I'm out and about, I might not see the faces in a football game, but I can still see the ball and the yard markers. But I may not read the scores as easily as I used to."

His predicament does not come as a surprise to him, but he said it does not make the situation easier to take, and so now he does not take for granted the fact he can still see some things.

"In the last five, seven years, I've seen my father bumping into chairs, picking up the wrong glass, and I became very aware of that," Shane Vogt said.

Vogt admits to being nervous about what the future holds for him, which he called "unsettling" and a "harsh reality."

"It's something that I'm aware of every second I have my eyes open," he said of possibly going blind like his father.

Rare condition

Dr. Mark Moberg, of Eye Surgeons and Physicians in St. Cloud, is a board-certified ophthalmologist who has the Vogts as patients for their autosomal dominant optic atrophy.

"The condition is rare — about 1 in 50,000," said Moberg, who has been treating patients in Central Minnesota since 1978 and provides surgical and consultative services in Milaca, Princeton and Melrose.

"The problem is that the optic nerve — the connection between the eye and the brain, and carries messages from the eye to the back of the brain — that nerve dies slowly."

Moberg first saw Gordon Vogt in 1990 — one of about four patients that the physician has come across with autosomal dominant optic atrophy in more than 35 years of practice.

"We often know the gene that is affected in this condition — the chemical structure of the gene — but we don't really have any idea how the gene works or how to stop the process," Moberg said.

The disease is caused by a gene that affects the mitochondria in the nervous system, so Gordon Vogt has to use aids such as magnifiers and talking watches.

"Shane is probably going to end up the same as his dad. Shane seems to be following the same pattern as his dad, unfortunately," Moberg said.

Tough life

To look at Gordon Vogt, one would not be able to tell that he had a problem, but the 63-year-old from St. Cloud has struggled.

Growing up, he sat at the back of the class because students were seated alphabetically, which made learning difficult for him.

"That's why my grade point average in school was so bad. I couldn't read none of the books," he said. "And over the years, I've been through treatment — alcohol and drugs."

He said his wife, friends and children would drive him where he needed to go because he was unable to drive, and when he reads, he has to hold what he is reading inches from his face.

"Now it's gotten worse as I've gotten older. If friends walk by me, 6 feet away, I don't know who they are anymore," he said of his vision.

"I know the hell I went through ... but I don't want my son to go through this, and if I can't get help, maybe in 20 years my son can."